Monthly Archives: June 2010

Note to self vita went broody on the 18th of June, which means we have are expecting a hatch date of the 23 of July. This gives us just over 3 weeks of broody duck time, so if we have any problem getting tina to sit we will stick the hen eggs under vita. Tina began sitting today, we will add 4 more eggs tomorrow.

It’s all go here on the plot. New ducklings, randy roosters and now Bee news! James ( our bee contact) rang yesterday to let us know that he has managed to seperate a nucleus with a flying queen. We are going over on Friday night to see the bees for the first time! If all goes well we should have a little colony to over winter and then Honey in the summer.

Last two eggs weren’t viable so our final duckling total is 11. Becs put a little pond in which they are really enjoying. Virginia is getting much better about us being near them but we are basically leaving her be.

Our little rooster is busy mounting everything with a pulse at the moment but some the laying birds aren’t happy about the attention. We are thinking of entering carmen into the chicken olympics as she seems to be able to outrun him. He has mostly mated with Jenny, so we will be trying to identify which eggs are jennys and put them under tina, this could lead to some more hens either for meat or laying. Not sure how loud the rooster will get, so he may still end up in the pot as my mum had decided not to have him. He is a lovley looking fellow and I will be sorry to see him go, but equally he will make a great eating bird.

Virginias brood. Final count 4 Indian runners 7 muscovy. I have moved the last two eggs out of the nest as V has stoppped sitting on them. I have put them under our broody hen and will leave them there for a couplemore days to be sure.

So, bit of a run down of the last few days. We got the shed delivered on Saturday morning, after a bit of a kerfuffle with the Argos man who insisted that what he had delivered us was our shed and not a childs play barn. Him ‘Well you’ve got 30 days to return it if it’s wrong’. Me ‘Well it is wrong’. GIVE ME MY SHED. I didn’t actually say the last bit. Only in my head. You may have noticed that Saturday was a bit breezy, which was a great day to basically make a solid plastic sail we thought. All went surprisingly ok though and we haven’t killed each other in the process. It’s now up, and with a couple of small adjustments the perches that we bought on ebay are now in and ready to move over the hens, ducks and geese to their new pasture. More electric fence ordered now but it hasn’t arrived yet. Besides which, they would be competing for space with the baby little owl that is living in the tree in the middle of that area. We spend Sunday evening watching him attempting to fly in various directions with mum and dad squawking away. Not too sure if this is part of the process of owl fledging but he seems to be ok. He was hanging upside down from a branch at one point like a bat, until a crow came and knocked him off. He was sitting in the grass when we got home from work yesterday and I took a pic on z’s phone so will upload at some point.

The other thing I did alot of at the weekend was strimming with my new strimmer (thanks mum and dad!) which is great and the grass is now a bit more under control following Diedre’s illness.

And, the best news, is that as of this morning we had 5, yes 5, ducklings. I have no idea if they are muscovies or IRs as I was too busy holding Virginia up while she pooed in her water bowl to look properly. Hopefully it’s a mix and there will be more to come 🙂 Aah, they are very cute, she has done a far better job than us. Hopefully pictures to follow!

No eggs yesterday, I think mama T is getting broody, which is stopping the others getting in the nest box. Will see what we have later.

And, lastly, the meaty cockeral has found his voice. Definitely some proper crows this morning. So he will either be for the pot fairly soon, or, if Z gets her way, he’ll get a reprise and will be residing at the grandparents instead. I hope this is not a taste of things to come.

Wow finally the ducklings are hatching. At the moment we have 5 little black and yellow ducklings. V is still sitting on loads of eggs so hopefully a few more will hatch today. She has done an amazing job. We are on day 39 of the hatch so muscovys really do take a long time to incubate! Fingers crossed they will all be ok.

These pictures are not related but I have been meaning to share the picture of the enormous egg that one of my girls laid…it was a double yoker! Also here are the geese.

In the next few weeks we are getting some sheep, which has meant registering our land with the rural payments agency, and the animal helath team. They send you a holding number and a pack which explains what ear tag etc you need. They also keep you on file just incase they need to let you know about any illnesses etc in the area. To get them here our sellers are going to have to fill in a movement licence, which we have to return a slip to DEFRA, a bit like when you buy a car.